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Book Share: “Rescuing the Bible from Frundamentalism
I had to take a break from all of my reading do focus on school, but some events over the past week have taken that pressure off of me (I may delve into those at a later date, but not now) and I’m again able to spend my free time reading for pleasure.
This new found free time ended up in a trip to Borders where I got a few books for the next few weeks. The first one I am diving into is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" by John Shelby Spong. While I thought that "Misquoting Jesus" would be the most challenging book I ever read in regards to the way I look at the Bible, this book takes it several steps farther. I’m talking a complete smack in the face on how I think about things.
If you enjoyed “Misquoting Jesus” then I’ll say you certainly need to read through “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism,” and even if you don’t agree with all of it (I certainly don’t even a hundred pages into the book) it’s a needed read.
For now here are a few of my favorite quotes thus far.
"Those whose religious security is rooted in the literal Bible do not want that security distrubed. They are not happy when facts challenge their biblical understanding or when nuances in the text are introduced or when they are forced to deal with either contradictions or changing insights. The bible, as they understand it, shares in the permanence and certainty of God, convinces them that they are right, and justifies the enormous fear and even negativity that lie so close ot the surface in fundamentalistic religion. For biblical literalists, there is always an enemy to be defeated in mortal combat."
"There is always a danger in believing that you and your people are somehow God’s specially chosen. The obvious corollary is that your enemies are God’s specifically “unchosen,” and very soon they are thought of as God’s rejected…. Every nation, including the United States, when it operates under a theory of divine election or manifest destiny, can be especially distorted.”
"Unless theological truth can be separated from pre-scientific understandings and rethought in ways consistent with our understanding of reality, the Christian faith with be reduced to one more ancient mythology that will take its place alongside the religions of Mount Olympus. Those who insist on biblical literalism thus become accomplices in bringing about the death of the Christianity they so deeply love. Ironic though it may seem, the success of fundamentalism in many ways guarantees the death of the very things these Christian folk affirm.”
pluralism
For starters, I should lay out my beliefs on heaven/hell. I’m not a literal interpretation guy, I don’t think that there is actually a lake of fire that souls will burn in eternal conscious torment. I believe there is such thing as separation from God, but don’t necessarily think that the choice has to be made here. I think I’ll be spending quite a bit of time with some Hindus, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of many other religious in the life after death, and as Wright terms it “The life after life after death.”
Now that that’s out of the way… I’m not a pluralist either, at least not a religious pluralist. In fact, I’m downright against religious pluralism, at least in the sense that there are many ways to heaven. Let’s face it, the notion that any way is OK is a complete crock of contrived bull manure. I think there is only one way to heaven, or the New Earth after heaven (again if your an N.T. Wright fan), I think the whole “Way, Truth, and Life, No one comes to the Father but by Me” thing is true.
So to recap- I think that pretty much everyone gets to be in “Heaven” but I think the only way to “Heaven” is Jesus. (Please forgive my use of the quotes around Heaven, that whole issue is murky) So to repeat myself, I am not a religious pluralist.
Now, in case you missed it, a recent Pew Study shows that 70% of Americans (please note it says Americans here, not Evangelicals) believe that there are many paths to heaven (Religious Pluralism), and “57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation.”
This is actually bad news to me. In my opinion, we need to understand other religions, work with other religions, learn from other religions, but fully understand that Jesus is the only way to into “Heaven.” Some may say this is a good thing, and I hope they are saying it because it shows that Evangelicals and Americans in general are more accepting of other religions, but we need to understand that deeper than that acceptance is what appears to me as a weakening of our religious understandings.
I don’t want to come across as Fundamentalist or even Evangelical here, but I do what to emphatically state that we need to understand that if we believe the narrative of the Bible to be true, than Jesus is the only way of restoration, and that way is not narrow in the sense that not many people will be allowed through (as some Bible thumpers beleive) but is narrow in the sense that it is the only way.
Forgive me for the repetition, but I take this issue quite seriously, and I feel like it just shows another way that the church as we know it is failing to provide any sort of solid theology for the laeity to understand the gravity of “salvation theology.”
(HT: Blake Huggins)
oh politick
Well, I finally decided to submit myself to a senatorial campaign for the ‘08 election cycle. One of my senators, Saxby Chamblis, certainly does not stand for many of the thigns I stand for. He is a member of the now infamous Cobourn Seven, and it’s reprehensible to me to vote against AIDs releif. He has also scored a whopping 0 on environmental issues (wiki), which is another major issue to me. Then take into his voting record on the war (pro), gay rights (anti) and universal health care (anti), then it’s really a no-brainer that I’m voting against him.
So, where does that leave me in the area of who to vote for? Well, after a few hours of research (yes only hours, but you can’t do that much research on smaller campaigns with essentially grassroots challengers), I’m going with Rand Knight.
Pro-environment, pro-fair trade, pro-universal health care, so he’s got three wins there. Really a lot of his rhetoric is in line with where I stand, and I think we need a democrat from Georgia to help balance out these things.
I just got an e-mail from his staff asking if I can do phone bank calls. I’m not a huge fan of that, but we’ll see. I’m definitely gonna drive down to their office and pick up some literature to look over, but I’m going to assume that it won’t say much more than what’s on his site (which is a lot).
The only thing I’m worried about is his lack of name recognition, the CEO of the largest county in Georgia (who knew they had CEO’s of counties btw) is also running int he primaries, and if we’re going off name recognition (which happens all the freaking time) then the CEO has a better shot.
We shall see, I’ll keep you posted.
the sbc (part deux)
So, two more news stories came out today regarding the SBC, and I thought I’d address them both. (USA Today & AJC)
In the USA today article, Frank Page, who had been trying to reform the party during his term, was quoted saying:
“I have admonished — lovingly but firmly — our convention not to get too close to any political party, parties change. I think we need to stay close to issues, and not hold allegiance to political parties.”
Which I must applaud. Actually, the more I read about Page and the changes he *tried* to bring, the more I like the guy. Page himself has even met with Obama, and says he will not blindly hold to either political party. I think that’s great advice that we can all learn from. I do fear that I may fall onto the democratic side of things, if the republic side continues to be resoundly pro-war, but thats a tangent for another post.
Anyways, contrast the above quote with this snippet from the AJC article:
The appointments Hunt will make will define whether he plans to hew the party line or open the leadership up to those outside the traditional circle of power, Key said.
Hunt said, “We went through 12 years of conservative resurgence, which I think was wonderful.
So, I am again concerned with the types of political moves the party will make. One point I forgot to mention yesterday was that Georgia’s Governor is a member (and Sunday School teacher) of Johnny Hunt’s church, which should shed a bit more light on how political they are.
So Blake asked yesterday if I thought that Johnny would “roll back the clock” on things like climate change, and I’ll answer “No” to that. I think that there is too much pressure globally to ignore climate change. Instead, I think that Johnny will increase the SBC’s social justice program, these two paragraphs from the USA Today article clues you in on that:
His church sponsors numerous outreaches into its Cherokee County community beyond the evangelism that has defined Southern Baptists. It has a food pantry, a ministry to burned-out pastors, English classes for immigrants and numerous ways to reach out to young people. In October, the church plans a three-day drive that will include free food and health care for the needy and it will send volunteers in the community to repair homes and clean up public spaces.
Hunt calls the program Loving Loud and wants to inspire the convention with it as well.
So, we’ll watch and wait to see how this all works out. I’m hopeful (about the social aspect), yet just a little bit worried (about the politics like homosexuality, and the right to buy alcohol on Sunday).
a thought on the sbc
So, Johnny Hunt has been announced as the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention. This interested me greatly, considering I’ve both been a member of an SBC church (note the alliterated B’s on the website), and attended Johnny’s church (I wasn’t a member there though, if that matters), in fact, I literally live less than a mile from Johnny’s church. So, I know just a bit about both of these organizations, and I’ll say I was a little shocked when I read the announcement in the AJC this morning (link), apparently the AJC’s opinions mirrored my own.
Josh Brown had made mention, a few months ago, that the SBC is in serious decline, and made the point of poor mode/method as the cause of this, and I must say that I agree with him. However, seeing the growing number of New Reformers (or as the AJC article calls them, young reformers) I had hoped that a fresh breath would be given to the SBC (and all baptists for that fact). I know several progressive steps had already been taken, namely the mention of global climate change as a large issue of our time, and thought that perhaps the organization was changing.
Well, with this appointment, I’m pretty sure I’m wrong.
Seriously, I remember the few services I attended at FBCW (Johnny Hunt’s church), there was always some sort of fundamentalist political overtone (please note, I’m not knocking the political overtones in services, I would likely discuss politics were I to ever step up to a pulpit). The two large issues I remember that were brought up are gay rights and abolitionism eerr… Sunday Alchohol Sales. I remember being told that if we were to vote Yes to Sunday Alcohol Sales our nation would fall even farther into moral decay. As far as gay marriage goes, I only remember being told that we needed to support the constitutional amendment in our state (Georgia) that would prohibit gay marriage from being legal.
Now, there are several good things that go on at FBCW. They have a, if I may use the term, kick-ass homeless help program, complete with both training (for the homeless) and I think nearly daily meals (they travel down to Atlanta to do so). They also have a program to help ministers who have in some way screwed up (affairs, stealing, etc) and are more often than not, kicked out of their churches instead of being taken care of. If Johnny is able to bring these sorts of programs to the SBC as a whole, than I would view his appointment as a LARGE success.
However, I’m worried that his appointment will be seen as a rallying cry to make the SBC into a PAC of the religious right.
For now, my prayers and my heart certainly go out in hope that a great change shall be had within the organization.
back to the grind
Well, after the insanity that was last week (working a ton at my job), things have settled down to the same old grind they were at a few months ago. I find myself sitting, once again, in the coffee shop at school, waiting for class to start, trying to make some headway into a college career that makes me want to quote Tommy Boy.
Did you hear I finally graduated?
Yeah. And just a shade under a decade too. All right.
Ahh, good movie, but sadly each semester brings me closer and closer to that scene.
Anyways, like I said, I haven’t had much time to blog lately, but (even more) sadly, I haven’t had anything decent to blog about. I could post up about my motorcycle, but I’m too lazy to go take pictures of it, and whats the fun in a motorcycle post without pictures? Really, other than school not much is going on in my life right now.
Honestly, right now I’m in a rather apathetic stage, where essentially all of this anti-establishment/empire stuff is catching up to me. I’m at a point where I realize how big the walls are, and how much easier it is to live within the confines of those walls.
The question is, how long can someone go against the system before the fatigue finally over takes them? I understand the need for sabbath, can one really take a sabbath from fighting the system? How does one refresh themselves?
a sorrowful refrain
As I sit and listen to the quiet piano refrain, and stare at the taupe wall in front of me, I can’t help but wonder if I’m ever going to earn my stripes.
Will I continue to be lazy? Will I continue to ignore needs that I see pressing around me for my own selfish reasons? Will I continue to just hope that the next opportunity literally falls in my lap, so I don’t have to do any real work? Will I continue to look up to those who are out there working, loving, serving, while I sit in front of my computer a blog about high handed topics?
It’s easier in the empire. I’ve decided this. It’s easier to just go along with the way things are, to respect those who are doing things outside of the box, but continue living in the box myself. I’m sure you already knew this though, I’m sure everyone knows this. The question is, why do we keep living in the box.
Why do I keep living in the box?
i’m still alive
I haven’t had time to do any good blogging lately, sorry. I spent most of my time today with my knees wrapped around an engine that has the ability to lean. Let me just say, I stinkin’ love riding the bike.
I went for the first real ride yesterday, down to the movie theater, then back (by a different route). Little scary at first, but after about five minutes on the bike I was getting pretty comfortable. I made a fifteen mile loop around town today, pretty good time. Tomorrow a buddy and I are going to head up to a local mountain/state park that has some well paved twisty roads. Good times.
Since I’m not posting, Thirdwatch did a pretty good series on What the Kingdom Isn’t, check that out. Reclaiming the Mind has a post about Hell. And here’s a nice bit of emergent humor.
batton down the hatches!
Starting today, Monday the 19th, there will be a change of pace in US politics. Probably not a big one, but certainly one that we are not use to here.
The United Nations will be sending an independent inspector to decide if there is racism within the US system. Why now? Because Obama is mathematically the Presumptive Democratic Nominee, and whenever a person of color attains a national leadership office, the UN inspects that nation.
So what will the inspector find? Well, thank God he won’t be traveling to West Virginia, or else we’d certainly fail the test.
But outside of that hickish lovely state, what will the inspector find? Well… he’ll probably find nothing. But lets face it there is racism, and it’s on both sides. For every white supremacist voter who refuses to give Obama the time of day, there is likely a black voter who is voting for Obama solely because he is black. I’ll probably get some flack for that statement, but come on, it’s true.
So what do we do? Well… you can’t really change a bigots mind unless their mind is open to it, and fighting them does nothing but give them more press coverage, so, you should vote for your candidate and be willing to discuss your voting decision with the open minded. So, get out there a vote (Obama) in November.
futures
Where am I headed?
If you had asked me a few years ago where I wanted to end up, I probably would have responded with something like a restaurant owner, police officer, or world famous musician.
How funny are the changes with time?
Two of those things would have involved large amounts of wealth for me, something that I was quite desirous of for nearly all of my life, the other would have been enjoyable for me, and I’ll admit sometimes I still think about how I’d enjoy being a police officer. But the crazy thing is, none of those are really possibilities in my life any longer.
I went from having a fairly certain life (with a goal of financial gain) to a life of uncertainty. We may be moving to Baltimore in a few years, which for us is a fairly big deal, I think it was kind of always assumed that I wouldn’t be traveling to far from “home,” yet Maryland is pretty far away from Georgia.
While I wasn’t wholly certain on where exactly I would end up, and what exactly I’d be doing, having a feint notion of a future path wasn’t at all comfortable to me. Really it wasn’t. I remember long miserable swaths of time where I would yell at God about not revealing my future to me in whole. Funny thing now is, I’m not at all certain what I’m going to be doing in a year, let alone the rest of my life, and I’m completely fine with that fact.
I’m completely comfortable with a completely opaque future. Sure, I have some things that I’d like to see happen (more on that in a second), but if they don’t happen I’m fine with that. There’s something far more exciting and intoxicating about not caring if you know your future or not. In a day in age when college messages revolve quite often around knowing “God’s plan” for your life, I’m somewhat of an intriguing dichotomy to that system. It feels good that way.
So, what are the things that I’d like to see happen? (Note: I’m quite interesting in coming back to this post in a few years and seeing if any of these things actually happened).
Well, I want to go to seminary. I’m a bookworm, I love knowledge, and while I doubt that I’ll ever be in a ministry position with a Church (As their known today), I still desire to know as much as I can.
We also want to travel, similar to Nick Fiedler and his wife, we’d like to spend some time just going around the world, doing whatever we’re given the opportunity to do, meeting friends and hanging out. There is something romantic about traveling the world, something beautiful and wholly thrilling to my mind. I desperately hope that we’re able to do so.
Finally, I kind of want to open up an alternative fuel shop. Kind of weird sounding, but it’s been there for a few months now. I really want to open up a bio-diesel location somewhere in Atlanta. Convert over some veggie oil and make up for some of the crap that I’ve put in the air with all the big trucks I’ve been driving since day one.
Will any of those happen? Who knows?
Will I be distraught if they don’t? Not at all.